The following chart shows the seasonally adjusted national pending home sales index along with the percent change on a year-over-year basis as well as the percent change from the peak set in 2005 (click for larger version).

Friday, November 06, 2015

Today's Employment Situation Report indicated that in October, net non-farm payrolls increased by a by a notable 271,000 jobs overall with the private non-farm payrolls sub-component adding 268,000 jobs while the civilian unemployment rate declined to 5.0% over the same period.

Net private sector jobs increased 0.22% since last month climbing 2.30% above the level seen a year ago and climbing 4.32% above the peak level of employment seen in December 2007 prior to the Great Recession.

Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more increased to 2.142 million or 26.8% of all unemployed workers while the median term of unemployment declined to 11.2 weeks and the average stay on unemployment increased to 28.0 weeks.

Today's Employment Situation report showed that in October “total unemployment” including all marginally attached workers declined to 9.8% while the traditionally reported unemployment rate declined to 5.0%.

The traditional unemployment rate is calculated from the monthly household survey results using a fairly explicit definition of “unemployed” (essentially unemployed and currently looking for full time employment) leaving many workers to be considered effectively “on the margin” either employed in part time work when full time is preferred or simply unemployed and no longer looking for work.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers “marginally attached” workers (including discouraged workers) and persons who have settled for part time employment to be “underutilized” labor.

The broadest view of unemployment would include both traditionally unemployed workers and all other underutilized workers.

To calculate the “total” rate of unemployment we would simply use this larger group rather than the smaller and more restrictive “unemployed” group used in the traditional unemployment rate calculation.